In 2008, the fourth dimension, time, steps to the fore in the art world — its passage, and our future, are clearly on many minds, as are ideas about slowing up, looking back, scaling down, and moving forward.

David Claerbout has a wily way with temporality. Using photography, video, and digital technology to move between fixed and time-based images, he’s developed what has been described as a “moving still,” to which he adds narrative elements. His slowly unfolding work rewards viewers who take their time. “DAVID CLAERBOUT,” at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center (20 Ames St, Cambridge; February 8–April 6), is the first museum survey of the Belgian artist’s work.

The transformation of a small pond north of Exeter, in England, as it undergoes successive periods of neglect and landscaping between 1996 and 2003 is the subject of “JEM SOUTHAM: UPTON PYNE,” at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum (106 Central St, Wellesley; March 19–June 8). The intimacy of Southam’s detailed narrative contrasts with “GRAND SCALE: MONUMENTAL PRINTS IN THE AGE OF DÜRER AND TITIAN,” which, up concurrently at the Davis, features woodcuts and engravings by ambitious early-16th-century artists intent on rivaling painted images.

Attempts to pin down nature’s fleeting tracks can be seen in “EVIDENCES: FOOTPRINTS, DRIPLINES, SCULPTURE AND DRAWINGS BY JOYCE AUDY ZARINS,” at the Essex Art Center (56 Island St, Lawrence; January 11–February 29), a show that focuses on a particular tree in Lawrence. And in “IMPERMANENCE: PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHELLEY ZATSKY,” also at the Essex Art Center (March 7–May 2), photographs of places on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “11 Most Endangered” list document the toll time takes on once-glorious buildings.

Looking at a photograph of a child, we might see vulnerability, purity, or experience beyond one’s years. “PRESUMED INNOCENCE: PHOTOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES OF CHILDREN,” at the DeCordova Museum (51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln; February 2–April 27), brings together 113 photographs dating from the early 20th century to the present; the collection includes a wealth of documentary and socially concerned works by such artists as Bruce Davidson and Mary Ellen Mark.

Time repeats itself in “BROKEN HOME, 1997/2007,” at Brandeis’s Rose Art Museum (415 South St, Waltham; January 23–April 13), a re-creation of a 1997 exhibition of the same name in New York’s Greene Naftali Gallery that included and will again include Robert Gober, Dan Graham, and Franz West, among others. Also at the Rose during this same period, “EMPIRES AND ENVIRONMENTS” pairs works from the Rose’s collection with contemporary artists like Wayne Gonzales and Nicole Cherubini, and “ARP TO REINHARDT: ROSE GEOMETRIES” focuses on examples of geometric abstraction from the Rose’s collection, with work by Ellsworth Kelly, Mary Heilman, and Al Held.

Pulling the rug out from under traditional gallery-going experience, “SOME SORT OF UNCERTAINTY,” presented at Axiom Gallery (141 Green Street, Boston; January 11–February 17) in collaboration with Art Interactive, encourages spectators to interact with seemingly empty spaces and otherwise activate as well as contemplate art by Bruce Campbell, Liz Nofziger, Douglas Weathersby, and others.

Bad-boy cool “People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.”

Our town After living through decades of Big Dig construction and disruption, the average Bostonian has developed a keener design knowledge and sensitivity.

Slideshow: Chunky Move at ICA The Australian troupe Chunky Move performed its 2004 work I Want to Dance Better at Parties at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art from March 27 to 29.

New new things Robolobster, an underwater crustacean with eight plastic legs and an industrial-strength plastic shell, is a groundbreaking example of the new science of biomimicry.

The right profile Contemporary African-American artists have taken on issues of race and American identity in a wealth of ways, from Kara Walker’s provocative silhouette narratives to Fred Wilson’s discomforting black "collectibles" to William Pope L’s agonizing acts of crawling.

Year in Art: Beyond the gloom The Boston art scene felt muted for much of 2008, with 10 galleries closing and the death of two local icons: Harriet Casdin-Silver and Jules Aarons.

Peabody rising Could the Peabody Essex Museum be the Boston area’s most exciting art museum right now?

Game show On November 12, the Institute of Contemporary Art opened its biennial Foster Prize exhibit of “Boston-area artists of exceptional promise.”

THE NATURE OF THE BEAST | September 10, 2008 In the world of graphic novelist Kevin Hooyman, whose show opens at Proof Gallery on September 13, packed line drawings take you deep into strange and fantastical scenes.

I AM I SAID | September 03, 2008 Tufts University Art Gallery presents “Empire And Its Discontents,” which opens September 15 with work by 11 artists tied to previously colonized regions in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.